7 & 8 November 2025, NCPA
The much loved The Little Festival …. where books are a lot of fun! for children returns this year by popular demand, running alongside Literature Live! The Mumbai Litfest at the NCPA on 7 & 8 November from 9am to 1.30pm.
In collaboration with the H T Parekh Foundation, The Little Festival will hold a variety of events and activities for the age group 8-13, involving storytelling, conversations, poetry, art, dance, music, word treasure hunt, workshops, book swaps, philately as well as sessions conducted by teenage writers and moderators. Children from a range of schools including NGOs will be invited to attend. The Binod Kanoria Awards for Children’s Literature will also be announced during The Little Festival.
Award-winning authors, writers illustrators, animators, librarians, including Abhijeet Kini, Bijal Vachcharajani, Bittu Sehgal, Cyrus Broacha, Kavita Singh Kale, Mukta Patil, Nita Luthria, Shalini Pradhan, Suresh Eriyat, will be participating. Ustad Fazal Qureshi will helm a session on playing the tabla, Katie Bagli from the Jane Goodall Foundation will lead a nature trail, Kasim Ansari will conduct tree walks, performative artist Prachi Saathi will tell stories through Bharat Natyam, Anya Hannan (at 14 the youngest writer at the Festival!) will discuss her book devoted to ocean conservation, and a large cast from Gillo Repertory Theatre directed by Shaili Sathyu will perform a play The Ghost of the Mountains.
There will be several themes for the young ones to engage with, including nature, pets, food, philately, science fiction, music, mystery, ghost stories and the environment. The activity-based sessions and book swaps will be conducted in the Doorbeen Tent to be set up in the NCPA grounds, an experience which was greatly enjoyed by the children last year.
Associate Festival Director Reena Agrawal who curates The Little Festival said: “In a world where the screen is proliferating, we are very happy to offer young children the option of interactive activities and exposure in presence to authors, books, arts and culture, live performances and the outdoors. We want to remind them that physical books and the expressive arts of acting, dance and song are as, if not more, spellbinding and magical as the lure of the digital world which surrounds them. We are grateful to the H T Parekh Foundation for their positive support to us in this endeavour”.
H T Parekh Foundation expressed its support: “Partnering with The Little Festival for the second year reflects H T Parekh Foundation’s deep commitment to promoting joyful reading among children. Through Doorbeen, our initiative that focuses on building school and community libraries, the professional development of library practitioners and the development of quality children’s literature in regional languages, we support the same vision as the festival: creating engaging, interactive, and inspiring experiences that help children discover the magic of books and foster a lifelong love for reading”.